


Men loved Darkness rather than Light

by theTabularium



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alien Biology, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Other, Symbiotic Relationship, krycek is a stubborn bastard and i adore him, so of course i will make him suffer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23613121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theTabularium/pseuds/theTabularium
Summary: He'd never admit it but Alex Krycek is afraid of the darkness.A collection of introspective drabbles on the life of one thing after being consumed by another. Just two desperate things trying to survive without killing eachother. Mostly canon-adjacent but who knows, I might give in to my impulse and go completely off the rails.
Relationships: Black Oil Alien/Alex Krycek
Comments: 2
Kudos: 4





	Men loved Darkness rather than Light

_"It is wonderful, the persistence of life..._

_That anything could survive down there, beyond all reason."_

_X-Files (S4 E8 Tunguska)_

It found him in the cold. 

Clinging to the balcony, beaten and broken, the iced metal of the handcuffs biting deep into his wrist. Darkness slunk down and the chill of the night sunk its teeth through his jacket, through the thin shirt, through his skin right into his bones. He grit his teeth against the building shudders and curled tighter in what little protection the concrete wall gave him. Two broken ribs screamed protests but like the countless other aches he put it out of his mind. He lied to himself just like he'd lied to Mulder and Scully when he said he didn't recognise it.

He might not have recognised it but as soon as he'd seen that rock he'd known. He'd felt it pulling before the bag had even got within arm's length. A sick twist in his stomach and a desperation - but he ignored it, like he had ignored it every time before. 

Krycek couldn't ignore it now. His muscles had seized and his lungs hurt. His breath was coming in gasps, rapid and ragged down the collar of his jacket in the vain hope of trapping some heat against his chest. Hypothermia had him in its grip and it was crushing the life from him in its bitter jaws. Somewhere he hoped his body would give out and he could pass the frigid night in the bliss of unconsciousness or death, whichever would take him first. He knew it was a futile hope. There was an ice burning in his veins that refused to let him go, just as it had in the frigid guts of the silo as it had forced his exhausted body up the slick metal and it had _churned_ and it had _wrung_ and it had _dragged_ every last part of itself out of him - or so he'd thought. So he'd hoped. So he'd begged. 

Sometimes he woke with the taste of it at the back of his throat. Sometimes he felt it, like now, in his blood. Those nights, he feared to look in a mirror and risk seeing it on - seeping into - his reflection. The darkness.

Whatever was left in him now still refused to let him die just as it had refused to die all those long decades at the sea floor. It needed him alive. It wanted to survive at any cost. And, god damn it, so did he. They shared that terrible desperation like they shared his body. 

So now, when he felt it gripping his faltering heart, tasted the acrid greasiness in his throat, he didn't fight it. But he was still afraid. Against all reason, to save itself, to save him, to save _them_ , it would kill him. 

It shut him down, piece by piece, with inhuman efficacy. His pulse wavered then stopped. The tremors in his chest fell into nothingness. There was a last pitiful sob of breath before silence. Consciousness spun away into vertigo, drawing him away from his aching body. In the delirium of detachment he thought maybe it was a mercy that some of it had stayed. Maybe this was the gratitude of something alien, to make sure he never suffered alone as it had once. Or maybe it was vengeance to trap him in a deathless void, like it had been. 

Krycek had died a hundred small deaths before and now he did again. The figure curled on the balcony took on a terrible stillness.

Darkness would hold him until the dawn. 


End file.
